Down in Birdland - Sat., Nov. 30

Saturday Bob and I were up early to go our separate ways: he was off to play basketball and I headed back to Mitchell Lake Wetlands Audubon Center to do a 5K (3.1 mi.) walk. Bob had a great time playing basketball and spent a long time at the gym.

I took 1-1/2 hours to do 3.1 miles, stopping to look at birds and taking my time in nature on a beautiful Saturday morning.

White-crowned sparrow.

Pink skullcap (Scutellaria frutescens)

Bird Pond at Mitchell Lake Wetlands

American kestrel

Western meadowlarks

No more hide and seek looking for Northern cardinals in the underbrush. Naked fall trees make cardinal spotting easy!!

Northern cardinal.

East polder at Mitchell Lake Audubon Wetlands.

Spotted sandpiper.

Eastern meadowlark.

Northern shrike

How many Northern shovelers do you see?

Can you identify this hidden bird? Click to enlarge.

Eastern meadowlark

After I finished walking, I headed home to shower before going to see "The Book Thief" with the San Antonio Movie Lovers meetup club. Bob joined me at the theater after he finished playing basketball. The Palladium theaters at The Rim shopping center are quite luxurious. A cafe is located in the lobby and if you're in need of a bar, you can find that in this theater too.

"The Book Thief" takes place in Nazi Germany during WW II. Narration of the story is provided by Death. When the movie starts it takes a minute to figure out who's telling the story. We follow a young family - mother, son and daughter, Lisle - who are walking across Germany. The son falls ill, dies and is buried along the way.

Lisle is given up for adoption and sent to live in a city where she makes friends with a neighbor boy. When they go to school, it is soon apparent that Lisle cannot read or write. One of the kids bullies her and she beats him up on the playground. This earns her a certain status amongst the other kids, but the boy she beat up never forgets what she did to him.

Her adoptive father (played by Geoffrey Rush) confesses to her that he is not a good reader and suggests they learn to read together. She becomes enthralled by the books she reads.

When the Nazis start persecuting and beating Jews, kicking them out of their businesses and homes, her adoptive parents take in a young Jewish man, Max, and hide him in their basement. Soon the air raid sirens go off and all the townspeople must go into shelters. Max cannot go into the shelter so he is left in the basement. Max becomes quite ill from spending all his time in the cold, wet basement.

Lisle "borrows" books from one of the prominent families in town. She spends her days in the basement reading to Max.  As time goes on Max's health improves and he realizes he is putting the family in danger. He makes the decision to leave their home and take his chances.

You can see the light bulb go off in Lisle's thinking. She's a smart girl who understands what's going on. She knew how it felt to be bullied in school and she saw how the Nazis bullied the Jews in their town. Compassion was in her eyes as she watched her adoptive father get struck down by Nazis when he tried to help Jewish townspeople who were being evicted from their homes. 

The movie was very enjoyable. Even though it is another tale of the hardships of WW II, the personal-ness of the impacts on the two major families in the story is well told. I loved the focus on reading and writing and how people helped each other. 4-1/2 out of 5 stars.

Travel Bug out.

Walk and a Movie - Mon., Nov. 18

No wasted time today! I got up, ate breakfast and headed out the door to Mitchell Lake Audubon Wetlands for a 3.1 mile walk. The temperature was in the mid-70s when I started walking and a cool breeze stayed with me the whole walk; a far cry from yesterday's blazing temp and humidity.

The reason I love walking at the Audubon wetlands is that every day I see something new. Today I saw a few birds I hadn't seen before and I will try to identify them. More turtles than usual were on the paths too.

Here, then, are the highlights of today's walk:

Northern shrike

Vesper sparrow, I think.

American kestrel, one of my favorites!

American kestrel showing his pretty coloring.

Olive-sided flycatcher

Black-tailed gnat-catcher.

Northern mockingbird

American white pelicans

Soloist

White pelican from below

Turtles "racing" across the path - the big turtle in back won.

White pelicans

May be a yellow-bellied flycatcher.

West polder.

Turkey vulture in flight.

White pelicans

West polder.

Some kind of nest.

If I were a bird, I would line my nest with this fluff.

Ruddy ducks.

Western meadowlark

Butterfly in sun.

Inner wing and outer wing are completely different.

Such a beautiful pattern.

As soon as I finished walking, I zipped back to the 5er, showered and headed over to pick up Sharon to go see "12 Years a Slave." We went to Regal Quarry Cinemas. Both of us liked the movie. You have to be ready for the intense nature of this movie. It pulls no punches (or should I say throws many punches) in showing slave owners at their most base. These are the slave owners who believed slaves were property and were no better than apes. Based on a true story, we learn of Solomon Northrup, a free man living a fine, respectable life in Sarasota, NY.

When his wife and kids leave on a three-week trip, he is approached by two men who have heard of his wonderful fiddle playing. They entice him to join them for two weeks in the circus to travel to Washington, D.C., and he will be paid a lot of money for his fiddle playing. The two men get him drunk and sell him into slavery.

From Washington, D.C., he is taken with other slaves to Georgia to work on cotton and sugar cane plantations. Life is torture on the plantations; no one wants an intelligent slave except his very first owner. However, his stay on the first plantation doesn't last long - he is sold to another plantation owner. Things go downhill quickly. It is a credit to him that he never loses hope of returning home to his family and his free man status.

The casting and acting are superb. I felt like I was complicit in the treatment of the slaves simply by virtue of being white. The movie is unsettling which I suspect follows the feelings in the book closely. While the movie is excellent, if you don't want to see nudity, rape, mental and physical abuse, hangings, or vicious whippings, then don't go. Because I am pretty sure this movie is true to what happened in that era, I give it five out of five stars.

Pam from Nomadic Newfies is our latest follower. I've been following her for months. She enjoys camping, hiking, photography and traveling. And she contributes to Mural Monday. Thanks for joining us, Pam.

Hot Half Marathon, Bob Suffers - Sun., Nov. 17

After our wonderful cool temperatures earlier in the week, today turned out to be quite warm...to the tune of 88 degrees and high humidity. This weather is not conducive to running marathons or half marathons.

One time when Bob ran a full marathon in Kona, Hawaii (very hot, no shade), he passed out at the side of the road and mobile medics rehydrated and cooled him. He could not finish that marathon.

I called Bob 4-1/2 hours after his approximate start time and there was no answer. He didn't call for quite a while. Because the full marathon passed very close by our RV park, I kept hearing ambulances. Even though the half marathon didn't pass by here, hearing the sirens made me wonder if Bob was okay. If you know me, you know I worry. 

He finally called while I was walking at the Mitchell Lake Audubon Wetlands. (He hadn't taken his phone with him.) Apparently toward the end of the race, Bob was really dragging. After crossing the finish line he had to go to the medical tent for very low blood pressure and dehydration. He was treated with IV fluids and ice packs to his head. They kept him for a while. He was told by medics that quite a few people needed medical care today because of the high temperature and high humidity. Scary stuff. Three years ago, someone died on this course. After relaxing all afternoon, he is fine now.

Around 12:30 p.m. I headed over to Mitchell Lake Audubon Wetlands for a 10K Volksmarch. When I started out, it was hot, but there was a little breeze blowing. However, by the time I walked down the hill and into the trees, no more breeze. It felt almost as hot as a summer day and it was miserable. Not to mention that  spiders must have hatched because I kept walking through single-strand webs. Ugh! I hate spiders.

Today, the ducks were out in force! It's the first time I've seen so many ducks in the polders.

Hundreds of ducks in East Polder.

Explanation of polders.

Northern shrike

American avocet and ducks

Northern shoveler

Blue-winged teal

Cinnamon teal

American avocets eating

Two turtles

Spider with butterfly (?)

Checkered white butterflies mating.

Checkered white butterflies

Checkered white butterflies

When I looked up the above butterflies online, the description said they can only be found in Raleigh, NC. I beg to differ because these two were at the Mitchell Lake Wetlands Audubon Center in San Antonio, TX!!

Turtles on the opposite shore.

Great egrets and American white pelicans.

Snowy egrets

Black-necked stilt and two American avocets

Just plain hot trail.

Weird-looking beetle

Northern shoveler - adult male

Northern shoveler - adult breeding female

Ducks and American avocets

Ducks with small shorebirds.

I was very happy to finish this walk and hop into my car and blast the air conditioner on my way home!

As promised here is a photo of my hair. It's very blonde and very short. She chopped off my sideburns which I wasn't happy about. (Are they called sideburns on a woman??)

Cheesy selfie, but you can see my hair.

Tonight Bob took me out for dessert at Olive Garden as a pre-birthday celebration. I had Black Tie Mousse Cake and he had Chocolate Mousse Seven-Layer Cake. Very decadent.

Tomorrow, I am going to see "12 Years A Slave" with Sharon from our RV park. She's as much a movie buff as I am, so we'll probably be seeing lots of movies together.

Enjoy your week before Thanksgiving. Safe travels everyone.